1891 – Birth of Sir William Lawrie Welsh, a Royal Air Force officer who commanded British air operations during World War II’s Operation Torch; he was a Royal Naval Air Service pilot during World War I.
1929 – American Evelyn “Bobbi” Trout breaks the record for the first all-night flight by a woman as well as the new women’s solo endurance record when she flies more than 17 hours from Mines Field (later Los Angeles International Airport).
1952 – Death of George Andrew Davis, Jr., a U.S. Air Force fighter pilot during World War II and the Korean War; he dies in the latter conflict after attacking a group of 12 Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15s that were about to bounce other U.S. aircraft. He shoots down two before being shot down himself.
1967 – First flight of the Dornier Do 31 (shown), a West German experimental VTOL jet transport aircraft.
1995 – A pair of Peruvian Sukhoi Su-22Ms are shot down by two Ecuadorian Mirage F.1JAs; almost simultaneously, a Peruvian Cessna A-37B also is shot down by an Ecuadorian Kfir C.2.
2004 – Kish Air Flight 7170, operated by a Fokker 27, crashes at Sharjah International Airport, killing 43 people; three survive with serious injuries. The cause: the propellors were put into reverse pitch while the aircraft was in flight.
